Open to Artists, Cultural Practitioners, and Scholars from the Caribbean and its Diasporas, the Program Catalyzes Creative Projects and Research Advancing Caribbean Art and Scholarship
(Miami, FL — October 10, 2024) — Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is pleased to announce the recipients of the fifth cycle of the Caribbean Cultural Institute Fellowship (CCI), selected through an open call by Iberia Pérez González, Andrew W. Mellon Caribbean Cultural Institute curatorial associate; Laura Novoa, assistant director of programs + community engagement at Bakehouse; Aldeide Delgado, independent curator and founder and director of WOPHA (Women Photographers International Archive); Marie Vickles, PAMM senior director of education; and Gilbert Vicario, PAMM chief curator. With the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, CCI is a program that aims to advance the study of Caribbean art while providing opportunities for exchange and collaboration across the Caribbean region and its diasporic communities.
“We are excited to welcome the fifth cohort of artists and scholars to this year’s Caribbean Cultural Institute Fellowship Program,” said PAMM Director Franklin Sirmans. “As a leading institution in contemporary Caribbean art, PAMM is dedicated to championing Caribbean arts and culture, supporting the artists, and advancing research in this vital field.”
The 2024 CCI Fellowship recipients include Arthur Francietta, a graphic designer and visual artist from Martinique; Claudia Claremi, an artist and filmmaker of Cuban descent; and Emilie Boone, an art historian and researcher of Haitian descent. As in previous iterations, this year’s CCI Fellowship cohort represents the wide cultural diversity of the region, with a focus on vernacular written and visual languages and experimental lens-based media.
“I am honored to welcome and support this extraordinary group of Fellows to Miami, where they will have resources, time, and space to develop their research and creative practice,” said Iberia Pérez González, Andrew W. Mellon Caribbean Cultural Institute curatorial associate. “I look forward to seeing how their projects will unfold during the fellowship period and beyond.”
The Caribbean Cultural Institute strives to provide visibility to Caribbean art in Miami through partnerships with local art organizations and institutions. This year, the CCI and WOPHA are joining forces with El Espacio 23, a contemporary art space founded by collector and philanthropist Jorge M. Pérez. El Espacio 23 will host 2024 CCI + WOPHA Fellow Claudia Claremi during her one-month residency in Miami.
In addition to conducting archival research and actively engaging with Miami’s Caribbean community and cultural ecosystem, Claremi will be participating in the 2024 WOPHA Congress, titled “How Photography Teaches Us to Live Now,” which will take place on October 23–26, 2024 at PAMM and various locations across South Florida. 2024 CCI Research Fellow Emilie Boone will also be participating at the WOPHA Congress in the CCI-supported panel titled “Caribbean Photography History” which will discuss the Caribbean’s relationship to photography and the complexities of studying the medium’s history in the region.
2024 CCI Artist Fellow Arthur Francietta will spend two months in Miami between October and December, and will have a dedicated studio space at the Bakehouse Art Complex, further solidifying the cultural partnership between PAMM and the Bakehouse that began in 2021. This inter-institutional collaboration provides Caribbean artists the opportunity to connect with local artists, taking advantage of Bakehouse’s art facilities and resources, and further expanding their practices through experimentation.
During the CCI Fellowship, Arthur Francietta will explore the creation of a Caribbean writing system, focusing on its materiality and medium of expression, and reflecting on questions such as: “What would a Caribbean writing system be? What would its materiality be, but more importantly, what would its medium of reception and expression be?” The project aims to delve into the mythology of Caribbean graphic systems through blending lettering and typography.
Claudia Claremi will expand on her ongoing series La memoria de las frutas (The Memory of Fruits), a large-scale research-based project studying the sensory and emotional bonds people have with fruit. In this new chapter, she will focus on members of the Caribbean migrant communities in Miami and their personal memories of Caribbean fruits.
Using black-and-white 16mm film and 35mm photography to capture the empty hands of participants—who gesture as they recall different fruits—and text fragments derived from their oral testimonies, she sheds light on the larger impact of industrial agriculture in the Caribbean, the migratory pathways of fruit and humans, the diminishing presence of fruit trees in Caribbean yards and streets, and the challenges Caribbean people face in accessing fruit that was once plentiful. Once complete, La memoria de las frutas will form a collective narration of the structural causes of this cultural disconnection and oblivion while, in the process, restoring individual histories and honoring the fruits associated with them.
Emilie Boone will explore how Haiti and its history of photography illuminate the nature of photography’s impact on various interlocutors across time. In addition to considering historical case studies, she will ask, “What can contemporary artists teach us about photography and Haiti?” and, in relation, “What is misunderstood about Haiti and photography when these sources remain overlooked?” Recent portraits, multimedia works, and curatorial projects related to Haiti highlight the complexity of photography’s role within the contours of the country’s broader history and in contemporary moments when its absence is as influential as its presence.
The recipients of last year’s CCI Fellowship were Petrina Dacres (Research Fellow), Shannon Alonzo (Artist Fellow), and Farihah Aliyah Shah (CCI + WOPHA Fellow).
ABOUT THE 2024 CCI ARTIST FELLOWS
Arthur Francietta is a graphic and typographic designer and artist from Martinique. His work explores the intersections of design, graphic divination, and sensitive territories. In his practice, he examines signs, scripts, and images, blending a designer’s research methodology with a mixed-media artistic approach—weaving, patterns, writing, and tracings—while exploring themes of futurism. How can proactive anticipation of the future shape our present? This question guides his artistic work.
Claudia Claremi is an artist and filmmaker. Her work combines video, analog film, photography, installation, sound, and text. She graduated from the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños (Cuba) and the University of the Arts London. Claremi has been an artist in residence at Beta-Local (San Juan, PR), Centre for Artists in Residence at Matadero Madrid Centre for Contemporary Creation, Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, NY), and The Clemente (New York).
Her films have been screened at Ann Arbor Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, and Guadalajara International Film Festival, and her work has been shown at the Center for Visual Art at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Haus de Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Museo CA2M (Madrid), and Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), among others.
Emilie Boone is an assistant professor of African American/African Diaspora Arts in the Department of Art History at New York University. She researches and teaches the art and visual culture of the African diaspora with a focus on vernacular photography and global encounters. She is the author of A Nimble Arc: James Van Der Zee and Photography (Duke University Press, 2023). Her research appears in the first comprehensive publications on the history of Haitian photography and the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince as well as in museum catalogues published by UCLA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
ABOUT THE CARIBBEAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE
The Caribbean Cultural Institute (CCI) is a curatorial and research platform at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) dedicated to promoting and supporting the artistic and cultural production of the Caribbean and its diasporas through exhibitions, research, fellowships, public programs, and collection development.
ABOUT PAMM
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), led by Director Franklin Sirmans, promotes artistic expression and the exchange of ideas, advancing public knowledge and appreciation of art, architecture, and design, and reflecting the diverse community of its pivotal geographic location at the crossroads of the Americas. The nearly 40-year-old South Florida institution, formerly known as Miami Art Museum (MAM), opened a new building, designed by world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, on December 4, 2013, in Downtown Miami’s Maurice A. Ferré Park.
The facility is a state-of-the-art model for sustainable museum design and progressive programming and features 200,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor program space with flexible galleries; shaded outdoor verandas; a waterfront restaurant and bar; a museum shop; and an education center with a library, media lab, and classroom spaces.
